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Atmospheric motions are demonstrated with NAST-I retrievals from radiance measurements
obtained from the NASA ER-2 aircraft near Andros Island, Bahamas on the evening
of September 13-14, 1998. The NAST-I has a spatial resolution of 2.5 km and a
spectral resolution of 0.25 cm-1 over a spectral range from 3.5 to 16 microns.
Temperature and moisture retrievals are obtained at the full resolution of the
data. Here we demonstrate, using NAST-I, that high spatial resolution retrievals
of temperature and water vapor at half-hourly intervals from GIFTS would provide
observations of water vapor flux and wind profile information. In this case, an
animated set of half-hourly interval images of water vapor (in terms of mixing
ratio and relative humidity) are derived from a time series of NAST-I profile
retrievals from spectral radiance observations over a small area near Andros Island,
Bahamas. These animations imply that the water
vapor flux can be observed. The flow is seen to change direction with altitude.
These experimental results, which imply a strong vertical shear in wind direction,
indicate that vertical profile information about the wind velocity can be achieved
by observing the displacement of water vapor features at different atmospheric
levels, a unique element of the GIFTS measurement concept proposed. GOES water vapor and infrared
imagery loops include ER-2 flight track information.
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